Friday, March 14, 2014

Philip Mirowski And Adolph Reed, Jr.: Separated At Birth?

I want to highlight the similarity in conclusions in Mirowski's recent book and Reed's controversial essay (see references below). Their understanding of the current conjuncture is fairly dispiriting. The right is winning in mass consciousness, despite their ideas being incoherent and vicious from an intellectual perspective. And their ideas extend over the entirety of the political spectrum, at least if one restricts oneself to what is seen to be practical. Arguments over how to make existing markets work better or to address current problems by constructing new markets, for example, accept the inevitability of capitalism.

Both Mirowski and Reed have something to say about what must be done by the left now. What is needed is a collective development of a leftist alternative. Those developing such an alternative need to be part of a group, like the Mont Pelerin Society was for the development of neoliberalism. And those developing this alternative, at least in their role in such a group, should not be overly concerned with the vagaries of this or that election in this or that country. This is a long term project, which, if successful, will spawn other groups over decades more concerned with implementation in specific times and places.

Are these authors correct in arguing the left does not currently have an inspiring vision to put before the public? You can talk about social democracy, but is that a way forward now? Are there powerful institutionalized groups working to improve our societies based on an architectonic view of what is possible? It seems to me more of a rearguard movement in advanced industrialized countries. And what about further left? I am aware of various statements of ideals - for example, Davidson and Davidson (1996), Rorty (1999)- but, without being built upon by a movement, these seem kind of idiosyncratic and quixotic to me.

An aside: If Mirowski is going to read literature produced by well-known writers who taught at Syracuse University, I wish he would mix some Raymond Carver in with the David Foster Wallace he has been reading.

5 comments:

On a related point, at the momentI'm reading Samuel Bowles's The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution, and it looks (so far) that it could be a useful source of the ideas that a "Mont Pelerin" for the Left. However, I'm sure some of the facts he points to would not be accepted by some on the harder Left.

"Are these authors correct in arguing the left does not currently have an inspiring vision to put before the public?"

Well, certain sections of the left do (libertarian socialists -- workers' self-management, for example) but much of the left are still statist (nationalisation seems the best they can come up with).

They also seem to focus on redistributing wealth after it gets monopolised into the hands of the few rather than seeking to build unions which stop it happening in the first place.

Also, we must recognise a strong left is part of a strong working class -- and we have been defeated for 30 years-plus. Part of what we need to do is recognise that and try and rebuild - from below -- a sense of empowerment and a spirit of resistance.

This would involve basically rethinking the whole history of socialism from the early 1800s and recognising that certain strategies (such as Marxist social democracy and its Leninist off-spring) may have appeared to be successful but, in fact, pushing us away from genuine socialism.

According to Gramsci the moral is essential. The scientific department of our social democratic party advocates four core values: social security, decent work, development and solidarity. However these are not clear goals, and difficult to make operational in a political campaign. In the past the social democratic movement was in favor of cooperative management or state enterprises. The results were disappointing. The problem is not in the ideas, but in the human nature.

"They [i.e. "much of the left"] also seem to focus on redistributing wealth after it gets monopolised into the hands of the few rather than seeking to build unions which stop it happening in the first place."

"Arguments over how to make existing markets work better or to address current problems by constructing new markets, for example, accept the inevitability of capitalism."